


If Not Human, What Are We Then?

by AwFuckWhatDoIPutHere



Series: Immortal AU but only pain [2]
Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Character Death, Family Dynamics, Gen, Grief/Mourning, I got the copyright on this thing by now, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Memory Loss, My tag baybeh, No Romantic Relationship(s) - Freeform, Platonic Relationships, Presumed Dead, Wilbro, also, c'mon mcyt fandom make this a tag 2021 let's goooo, immortal au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-16 01:34:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29568273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AwFuckWhatDoIPutHere/pseuds/AwFuckWhatDoIPutHere
Summary: Wilbur doesn't remember how he ended up here, back in Brighton, with a wilting flower in his hands, after he had sworn to himself that he would never set foot in the damned city again.(It ain't required, but I swear, this will be so much easier to understand and a lot less painful for you if you would just read the first fic first, wink wink)
Relationships: Niki | Nihachu & Wilbur Soot, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF)
Series: Immortal AU but only pain [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2172282
Comments: 14
Kudos: 32





	If Not Human, What Are We Then?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bellfort3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellfort3/gifts).



> Immortal AU let's make it a series baby

Wilbur rolled the flower in his hands. 

From palm to palm. Fingertip to fingertip. Every time it got a little too close to the edge, he turned it back over, and it rolled on. 

He had just bought it earlier today. At a flower-shop in downtown Brighton that had been open for as long as he could remember. 

He had always thought it was a good flower-shop. Family owned. And always with a nice cashier to greet the customers when they came in. 

However, they must have gotten new employees fairly recently. New employees that didn’t seem to know how to properly take care of plants. 

Because the rose in his hands, red as can be, was already wilting. With petals tearing themselves from the sloppy stalk, and the wind picking them for a swirling dance in the warm ocean breeze. 

He didn’t know why he was still twirling the flower between his fingers. He didn’t know why he didn’t stop immediately. Hell, he didn’t even know _how_ he’d gotten here. To this rotten wooden bench. In the middle of the beach. With polished shoes and a black suit that- 

Oh. 

\---- 

Wilbur remembered. 

It was one of the _few_ things that he really took pride in. 

For years, he’d trained himself to remember. To keep everything that he felt was important, as well as everything he _knew_ was important a fresh feeling on his mind. One that wouldn’t let go and drift away, no matter what happened to him. 

Never was there a quiet moment in his mind. Always, his thoughts raced to repeat everything that had happened. Every place and experience and technique he had ever used. Sure, some things faded with time, but it never took him more than a few tries to dig it up from the back of his mind again. 

What he knew he couldn’t remember by himself; he wrote down. 

In books and journals. With a ballpoint pen on his wrist, and on every little piece of scrap paper he picked up from the side of the road. 

Every major landmark he’d seen. Every dish he’d, successfully or unsuccessfully, tasted and tried to replicate from the comfort of his home. All the major flings he’d had, though they nearly all left him with a bitter taste in his mouth. Every single house or appartement or trailer he’d owned or lived in the last forty years. All written down and looked over. Nearly every single night. 

Sometimes, when he realised he’d already memorised the entirety of a journal, he’d burn it, or throw it away. The information had already been added, he didn’t need all his secrets lying around, just so it could be found by some shitty game journalist, and then become part of their shitty mystery pod-cast, where they would discuss exactly who would write down “1984. Went to Southern Canada. Stayed there for three months. Met four important people, here they are:” 

The information was now a part of _him_. Part of the _him_ that he’d spent a good part of sixty years trying to record and memorise.   
The _him_ he always tried to build up. 

It was part of _who he was._

And he was scared to forget it. 

He was scared, that one day, it would all just disappear. 

It followed him everywhere he went. Rested on his shoulder. Whispered all its paranoia and anxiety into his ears. 

He couldn’t go a single day without agonizing the possibility. 

And it was why he made _them_ up. 

\----- 

People are shockingly easy to replicate. 

If you know _just_ the tips of their inner layers, it is nearly effortless to make up the _them_ that you saw them as. The _them_ that you remember them as. 

It becomes easy to imagine what they will say. How they will react. 

Hell, if you’ve known someone long enough, it becomes unbelievably easy to replicate them from your mind alone. 

And incredibly, it also becomes _m_ _uch_ easier to remember someone if you speak to them regularly. 

____ 

The first time he did it, it was an accident. 

He’d just uprooted himself for the fourth time in four years. The moves had become much more frequent than before the accident. 

Before, he’d stayed in the same city for up to twelve years. It had made it so much easier to keep track of all the little parts of life that were difficult to capture by living on the run. 

A regular job. A stable roof over his head. Friends. 

Family. 

… 

Okay, maybe Wilbur had gotten _a little bit_ too attached the final time he’d settled down for too long. 

But he didn’t like to think about that. What he had made in Brighton had been beautiful. He didn’t deserve to taint its memory with his grief over even _allowing_ himself to settle down. 

It didn’t matter that he had gotten attached. It didn’t matter that the regret he felt _now_ far outweighed the happiness that had come from four years of a real, emotional connection to a kid that he half considered his own. 

All that mattered now was that the kid had been happy, and he had been too. 

“Hi.” 

Wilbur almost jumped out of his seat. 

First off, he’d thought he’d been alone in the back of the empty bus. The only other person would have been the tired bus driver in the front, who’d been chewing on the same un-lit cigarette since Wilbur had boarded the vehicle in Bordeaux. 

Second off, the person in front of him was very much _not supposed to be here._

He stared blankly, as niki “ _nihachu_ _”_ stretched her legs on a row of empty bus-seats, and tucked her glasses away in a little handbag, that she then placed on the floor between them. 

She looked up, and smiled. 

“How are you doing, Wil?” 

“I... wha...? You? How?” He was staring, he knew it, but here she was. Straight out of his worst nightmare. 

How had she found him? 

Finally, he composed himself. 

“Niki,” He asked. His voice breaking in two. 

“How are you here? 

For a second she was completely silent. 

Then, she looked up. Direct eye contact. Just like he’d been taught to do in a job-interview. Or a questioning. 

“I’m not.” 

_Huh?_

_“_ I know what it looks like, but I’m not really here. The real _me_ is still somewhere in England. _I_ am just your subconscious dealing with...”   
The imaginary Niki gestured to the empty bus.   
“ _This.”_

_Of course_. 

Wilbur slumped back. 

_Of course_ _she isn’t really here._

"Hey, can you look at me?” 

He knew she wasn’t there. She had just said that she wasn’t really _there_ . But something in N iki’s voice just _urged_ him to get up from his hunch. To look her in the eyes. To make sure he could still see him. 

Because was this really worse than just pushing the memory he had of her aside? To log it in with all the other people he had met and abandoned over so many years. To reduce her to a daily task of keeping himself grounded? 

Did the Niki he’d known, alive, yet gone from his reach, deserve to be pushed aside for a _boy_ who was already dead? 

_No_. He thought. 

_She deserves to be remembered as a living person_. 

As he straightened up against the seat, and looked at her with the most determined glare he could, Niki smiled. 

“Do you remember the first time we spoke?” 

_Of course_ _I do._ He thought. _That memory is a core part of my time in_ _Brighton._ _It was_ _right after I met-_

Wilbur froze. 

_No. I promised myself I wouldn’t think of him right now. I’m talking to Niki. Not him._

He knew he had tensed up. He could _see_ that Niki saw it too. 

“Uhh... yeah! Yeah, I do, I do,” He babbled. Here he was, trying to pick up the pieces after just five seconds of conversation. Pathetic.   
“Love or Host, right? With... uhhhh...” 

“Austin.” She smiled. Yet it didn’t quite reach her eyes. And he had a feeling that she _knew._

_“_ Yeah. Yeah. The Austinshow. The one with all the... with all the...” 

“Streamers. That was why you were invited Wil. You were a streamer.” 

_FUCK._

It echoed through his mind. 

So many years. So many years of _rehearsing_ and _relearning_ and it had all just dropped at the second something unexpected happened. 

What if Niki hadn’t been there? What if he’d been alone? 

How much had he already forgotten? 

“Hey. Hey. Hey-heyheyhey.” 

He heard the characteristic sound of something scraping over the rough plastic seats, and not a second later, he felt a hand encircling his wrist. And he rushed up to meet a bright blue eye, centimeters away from his own. 

“Hey. It’s okay. You’re okay. Wilbur, Wilbur _look at me-”_

He hadn’t even realised he’d looked down again.   
Looked down, at the edge of his shirt. A shirt that was covering the edge of dark blue ink, and a motif that still felt like it had been made just yesterday. 

But, just like before, he looked up again. At Niki. 

He looked at _Niki_. 

“Wilbur, it’s _okay_ if you can’t remember right now,” 

He blinked in surprise. How did she know? 

“It’s _okay_ if you don’t know what you’re going to do right now. You don’t need to.” She was speaking quickly. Her accent slurring the words together, almost making them incomprehensible. 

_Oh right_ , he realised. _She’s a pigment of my imagination_. _A sock-puppet for my mind to play tricks on me._   
But _oh,_ the hand on his arm just felt so _real._ Even if he knew she was nothing more than thin air. This girl in front of him felt more human than anything he’d been since he left Brighton for good. 

“But how do I _stop_ it Niki? How do I keep myself from going insane if this is going to be the rest of my life? The rest of my existence? ” He was whispering. But it still felt like a ramble. He couldn’t stop himself, because right here was such a _familiar_ face, and he didn’t even have it in him to keep himself from forgetting how they even met. 

Now, it was Niki’s turn to be stunned. 

“I-” 

“Niki, I _promised_ myself I wouldn’t get attached.”   
It was no longer a whisper. But it wasn’t a shout either. It was something in between. Something that moved all the way from his gut and into his head.   
“I’ve lost people before Niki. I _know_ I shouldn’t have gotten attached. I settled in Brighton to start again. I moved there because I didn’t want to make any _real_ connections. I put up an _entirely new personality_. An entirely _new_ human being. And it still _fucking happened.”_

He was crying now. He knew it. He was crying to an _illusion_ about his family problems, and he was _still_ _fucking_ _doing i_ _t_. 

“Niki, _I knew I would lose him. I knew, every second we talked together. Every fucking word._ _That I was going to lose him. That I would outlive him. That I would either_ _have to_ _watch as he_ **_fucking_ ** **_died,_ ** **** _or I’d have to leave him. An_ _d I still fucking did it.”_

He was sobbing. Full, fat tears, rolling down his face. Just like the day he’d gotten that call from Tommy’s parents. 

“Why? Why would I do that to myself Niki? Why did I get so close to him, even though I knew that I’m going to live forever, and he was just a human?” 

She didn’t reply. 

For a moment, the two just sat in complete silence. He was out of things to say. And she... 

_She..._

_Was fading out..._

_White noise and scraping plastic. She was just an illusion. Just a memory he couldn’t bring himself to push away. She was..._

“Wilbur. That’s not what life’s about.”   
She was replying to him. 

“Life isn’t about regretting every choice and decision you make. Not about remembering the people you love as nothing more than _just_ -” Her voice was shaking.   
“Just _batteries_ that run out and have then outlived their purpose. That’s such a _self-centric_ thing to say. That nobody is worth knowing, just because they will die one day and you _won’t_.”   
She was crying now, too. And in his opinion, with much better self-control than he’d managed.   
“ _Wilbur,_ you can’t just write off everyone you’ve known like that! Does that make us worthless to you? Does it mean that you’re just _using our memory_ to assure yourself that you still have everything under control?” 

“Niki, I-” 

“ _No_ ! No, Wilbur. That’s not how it works. That’s not how _any of this works_!” 

“Niki, I’m just trying to-” 

“You aren’t trying hard _enough_ , then. Because what does that make _me_ to you? Hell, what does that make _him?_ Are we just something for you to grieve, something for you to regret? Or are we actually _people_ to you? Do you even _care_ about us?” 

He was stunned. It felt like every inch of his body was creeping for him to say something. To defend himself. But all that came out were strangled noises, buried under the sound of Niki’s angry shouts. 

He opened his mouth, but she shushed him with a finger. 

“Don’t try to defend yourself. Don’t try to write this off. This is what you’ve been doing, and you can’t deny it. Not to me. Not to any one of us. Not even to _him.”_

Then, she looked over his shoulder. Towards the front of the bus, the direction that he was facing away from, and her eyes widened. 

“What? Wait, Niki, what are you seeing, what’s going-” 

“I don’t have much time Wil.” She said, voice cold and stoic. 

“Wait what? What did you say?” He was still confused, but speaking in a hushed voice. Whatever had alerted Niki, it probably didn’t help if he shouted down the bus again. 

“Wil, I just want you to know, I’m not the only one that you’re gonna see. They will come. And soon. I’m just the first of many.” 

“Niki? Wait, Niki, what are you talking about?”   
Then it hit him.   
“Wait... they will come? Are you saying... will they...?”   
_Will he?_

She looked at him, and suddenly, the anger was gone. Replaced with a pitiful expression. 

“I don’t know Wil. I don’t know who will show up. I just know that- I don’t know. I _don’t_ know, Wil. I just have a feeling-” 

“ _Niki.”_ He said, voice shaking once again, “what do you mean? Don’t you know if I- if he-” 

“I mean... You still have strong memories with him. You still... you still remember him. You can still remember what he was like, right?” Niki’s voice had gotten lower. More controlled. But she was hesitant.   
“But then again, I don’t really know...” 

“Niki! _Please_ , just give me a straight answer. Will I see him again?! Will he ever show up?” 

_Oh my god,_ he thought. 

_What if I never see her_ _again?_ _What if they never show up?_

_“Wil._ ** _I don’t know._** _”_   
She looked back behind him, and Wilbur had to stop himself from whipping his head around to see what it was. 

“Just... Wil. If he doesn’t show up... just... go back to England to see his resting place. Just once in your life. _Please.”_   
She put a hand on his cheek. Brushing at a stray tear, dripping down his face.   
“Can you do that? For me?” 

_For us._

_For them._

_For him._

_“_ I...” 

For a final time, she looked back behind him. And this time, he couldn’t stop himself from following. 

Just down the bus, three or four meters from his seat, stood a grumbling bus driver, with a chewed-up cigarette between his slightly yellowed teeth. 

“Hey, what are you doing? Who are you talking to? I swear, I get enough drug-addicts around these parts already. I don’t need a crazy to mix it up with too.” The fat man sounded disgruntled, and it marked his words. Didn’t help that Wilbur was still struggling to learn German either. 

“Uh,” Wilbur was still shook by the recent conversation. And he found it harder than ever to dig fourth the words from his mouth and provide an explanation as to _why_ he was talking to himself in an empty bus at four in the morning.   
“I... uhhh... I got a phone call. From a family member. Emergency. Y’know.” 

The man didn’t seem entirely satisfied, but didn’t look like he considered this something he was paid enough to deal with, so he went back to the front of the bus, and started the engine again. Wilbur hadn’t even realised it’d been turned off. 

As the motor roared beneath him, Wilbur couldn’t help but lean back, and wonder what would happen now. 

___ 

As the years came and went, so many different faces popped up. Some more frequent than others. People he hadn’t even spared a second thought outside of his daily routine suddenly popped up like flowers after a long winter, and he found himself having conversations he’d never thought he’d have again, with the life he’d chosen for himself after The Accident. 

But still... 

No _him._

No Tommy. 

And that was how he found himself _here_ , so many years later, on a beach in Brighton, with a dead rose, and a fancy suit he’d thought was the only appropriate wear for a visit like this one. 

The stone was just down here. His parents had agreed to let it be part of some new art project, and everyone else had been fine with it too. Even Wilbur.   
Its goal was to move the concept of _death_ out of the secluded area of society, where it was hidden behind stone walls and old churches, out into nature, where the rest of the world would be forced to face it. 

That meant the stone was now resting on the beach, next to a few others. Not where most people went, but still prominent enough that it was impossible that _no one_ would ever find it by accident. 

Wilbur dusted off his pants, and kneeled where he could be face-to-face with the stone’s inscription. Like some strange form of respect. 

_HERE LIES_ _TOM PANDEL_

_Son, F_ _riend & Brother. _

_Loved by all._

_April 9t_ _h_ _2006_ _– March 15_ _th_ _202_ _6_

_May he rest in peace._

Wilbur buried his finger in the sandy earth, and let the rose seeds trickle into the little hole before he covered it with dirt once again. 

**Author's Note:**

> *bangs pots and pans*
> 
> This is about the personas! Not the real people! Don't be weird!!! If any of these creators featured express discomfort with fanworks like these, I will take this fic down immediately!


End file.
